Cookies are to Christmas as hot dogs are to baseball and you know that's a fact!

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As a person who doesn't really enjoy baked goods, I've found myself a bit puzzled over the cookie craze. My friends spend entire weekends baking cookies. Entire weekends.

Where do all the cookies go? Do people really eat cookies endlessly and in a big enough quantity to justify spending literally days to make them? Doesn't it get boring spending hours and hours cookie making?

I know that I must sound completely ignorant to those who live for cookie season, but I didn't grow up in a home where we made sweets together or where we really even ate them. I'm sure that my sweet-toothed son would love if I were into baking treats, but the poor kid is Christmas cookie deprived with the exception of the single Santa cookie I buy him from Wegmans every year.

If an anise pizzelle counts as a cookie, it would have my vote for most delicious. As a matter of fact, pizzelles are the only treats that I can eat more than one of and not be turned off by the richness or sweetness.

For as many people as I know who would rather suck on dirt than eat anything with anise in it, I was totally shocked to learn that New York's favorite Christmas cookies are...anise Christmas cookies or, you might know them to be called "Italian anisette cookies."

Google took a look at what cookies and cookie recipes people were searching for the most in each state and discovered that New Yorkers are the only ones who love anise cookies.

The top searched-for cookie in America is one that topped the favorites list of our neighbors in Pennsylvania -  Italian Christmas cookies. Forgive my ignorance, but I'm assuming Italian Christmas cookies (which took the top spot in five states) are basically the same as anise Christmas cookies minus the anise, right? Or, am I way off?

I'm an awful baker and my heart leaps into my chest whenever I'm asked to make cookies for something, but I've learned that these cookies are fail-proof and frustration-proof. Sure, it might be cheating a little bit but if you're not into baking but find yourself needing to make cookies for one reason or another, you'll thank me for this recipe.

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